life

Two lottery tickets bought at the same time have the same exact numbers.

Interesting and sort of funny.

I would be somewhat suspicious myself, especially since it took an individual going to the media to get any response from Arizona Lottery officials. I doubt it was anything more than a malfunction with the machine or program running the random number generator but a little more transparency by official would have been better received by the public.

As an aside, congratulations to the winners of last night’s Mega Millions jackpot.

Although admittedly the Mega Million madness doesn’t seem too bad around here since I haven’t seen long lines, or well, lines at all for that matter. Like millions of others I decided to give it shot and bought some tickets back on Wednesday. Why not? Sure the likelihood of winning is slim to none, but it’s also a rarely large sum up for grabs, so a couple bucks spent seems okay to me.

Whoever wins (whether now or a later drawing) will definitely be set for life, so long as they don’t fall into the trap of spending it wildly. I just hope whoever wins is someone (or several someones) who really need the money. I have nothing against the well to do and rich, but I admit it rubs me the wrong way when I see such people win large prizes. It seems greedy to me.

Whoever wins, it’ll be historic. Even more so if no one wins the prize given projections for next drawing in that circumstance.

A billboard erected in one of the city’s most racially diverse neighborhoods featured an African slave with the biblical quote, “Slaves, obey your masters.” It lasted less than a day before someone tore it down.

And Atheists wonder why main stream Americans dislike them so much. There’s no way the Atheists responsible for this billboard could claim they don’t deserve the anger and outrage aimed at them. Why?

The scripture quote is incomplete and therefor ignores the context in which it was intended. (Yes, the Bible said slavery was okay, a concept we consider abhorrent and no one endorses in the modern day United States.)

Using black slavery imagery was a blatant racist poke. This no other way around it. No one educated in the United States could claim to be unaware of how offensive that imagery is to all Americans, but especially blacks. I dare say most foreigners understand and find the imagery offensive as well.

So they rightly deserve the anger directed at them , though certainly not the death threats. You can not engage others in religious discussions by demeaning and insulting your target audience. Being upset over the legislature calling 2012 the year of the Bible or whatever is silly. Be more concerned about religiously affiliated politicians trying to pass regulations and laws based on religious dogma (like recent efforts by Christians against contraception, women’s health, and Sharia). Atheists who proselytize atheism are no better than those religious groups they target.

Besides, a real Atheist wouldn’t care about another person’s religion anyway. As an Agnostic, I don’t. When approached by those proselytizing I make it clear I’m not interested in converting (though I will discuss their beliefs with them if they remain civil) and walk away from those that can’t accept my refusal to convert.

An Atheist proselytizing Atheism is about as effective as a Creationist teaching Evolution.

He added that the traditional family and marriage had to be “defended from every possible misrepresentation of their true nature” because, he said, whatever injured families injured society.

The Pope is too late on “defending” traditional family and marriage when you look at it from a historical perspective. A modern “traditional” family is not the traditional family of a century ago, let alone five hundred years ago and certainly not the same as the traditional family of the time of Jesus. For example, during my grandmother’s time it was not unusual for multi-generational homes to exist in which the grandparents, parents, and children to live together (sometimes including aunts and uncles and their families as well). My mother’s generation saw the creation of the so-called nuclear family (parents and children) which also started a trend of divorces by those who realized they didn’t have to remain in horrible marriages. By my generation we’ve reached the modern family which includes the gamut of multi-generational homes to single parent households to gay couples. In other words, traditional is a meaningless term with respect to family.

As for the “true nature” of traditional marriage that’s simple: marriage was created as a means of enslaving women to men, of treating women as property by trading daughters off. Worse, being punished for not being “wifely” or forced into a marriage with their rapist as the Bible dictates. Do you honestly think independently minded women today would willingly walk back into being forced into arranged marriages and denied their equal rights? It’s only been a relatively new concept that marriage is a partnership between a man and woman, and really only the last one hundred years that women have started to achieve of semblance of equality to men in Western European, Christian based cultures. Even that appearance of equality is still lacking in many areas such as career opportunities, wages, politics, education, and so forth.

So the Pope’s argument against gay marriage is a weak position and one that likely would have never arisen if not for the bigotry of the religious community against their fellow human beings. I remember in my teens and you adult life homosexuals simply asked for civil unions so that homosexual couples could receive the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples. When they were vehemently denied such equality under the law, that is when I first heard them start using the term marriage which has now inevitably led to this notion that gays somehow “threaten” heterosexual marriages and families.

One would think the Pope has better things to worry about than homosexuals, such as the pedophile priests and allegations of the rape of nuns, justifying the vast wealth of the Vatican when compared to the poor and impoverished of the Catholic masses, and championing Christians facing persecution around the world for their faith.

Just some rambling commentary on the so-called debate on contraception and health care with respect to beliefs and taxes.

Let me start off by saying that this debate over mandated contraception coverage is a prime reason why there should be no government controlled (in part or in whole) health care system in which the bureaucrat has any say in what treatment an individual should receive. It’s far too easy for special interest groups to get into power within such government bureaucracy and impose their social or political agenda. All we need do to see evidence of this fact is look at the abuses and failures of the EPA, the FDA, the DoJ and DHS in recent years. For now it’s contraception. What happens when others come in who oppose cancer screening and treatment or oppose vaccinations or oppose organ transplants or conversely want mandatory organ transplants or sterilization of those deemed “unfit” or “unsound” or ones who would deny medical care based upon genetic background? I’ve heard and seen people advocating these things long before the notion of government run health care became so prominent on the political scene. If we’re still publicly arguing about contraception after a hundred year (or more) it’s not that far a stretch for these other medical issues to come up in the name of religious freedoms and personal beliefs.

One hundred years ago it was illegal to discuss contraception under Federal morality laws. So here we are still arguing over contraception because some religious zealots wish to impose their beliefs upon the nation under the guise of religious liberty. The issue is contentious but mainly only by those who use their position to impose their religious agenda. Specifically, I speak of the Roman Catholic Church and it’s antiquated approach to women in general, and specifically with respect to reproductive health and rights. (Let’s be honest here, the conservative religious groups really want to use this to strip away abortion rights. Why else would they be pushing for so-called “personhood” laws for fetuses and even sperm? (What’s even more sad was the woman who wrote the bill intended it to be a sarcastic wake-up call to ignorant people; instead it was taken seriously.)

I get that the religious institutions feel they are under attack by the mandate that covers women’s reproductive health issues (among them contraceptives) but their argument for being excluded from the mandated coverage is somewhat specious.

To say that your beliefs should supersede law is a rather dangerous notion if it were allowed to become acceptable legal practice to exclude those from laws because their beliefs say they should oppose the law or find the law “morally objectionable”. With that sort of thinking ethno-racial supremacist groups like Stormfront, Brown Berets or the Black Panthers could argue they are exempt from desegregation, interracial marriage, and equal opportunity laws or misogynists could claim immunity from employment or equal pay for women because of their belief in women’s inferiority.

Dogma, religious or otherwise, can not be used to justify receiving special consideration under the law when that special consideration infringes upon another individuals rights and protections under the law. This is especially so if an organization is accepting tax payer funding or receives any sort of tax breaks and/or exemptions. If you accept tax payer money or funding or any other special treatment that involves tax payers then you must be held to the same laws and standards as the tax payers.

Everyday we all accept that our taxes go to things we do not support. Businesses and workers alike having to pay taxes and fees related to our employment. Does any one group deserve special treatment over the other because of self professed belief? Of course not. Laws and regulations only work when applied equally and impartially. When they are not that is when lawlessness and eventual anarchy begin to creep in if the unequal application if law is not corrected.

A bill introduced Jan. 5 and sponsored by Democratic Assemblyman Michael Allen wouldn’t allow unemployed job-seekers to sue for discrimination, but companies that violate the law would face investigation and fines of up to $10,000.

“There’s been an increasing utilization of using this as a crude screening process to keep applicants from even being interviewed,” Allen told The Huffington Post. “It’s better to be proactive rather than to let this become a common practice.”

I rarely like government making regulations on business given the plethora of bureaucracy such laws often create, but this is one of those times were such regulations I feel are necessary. I’ve known several people that were denied jobs simply because they were currently unemployed at the time the interviewed. I was once told that I fit all the criteria for a position but that I was not selected to be hired solely on the grounds that I was not “currently employed” while undergoing the hiring process. I discussed the issue with the HR person, who agreed with me that it was silly not to hire a perfectly qualified candidate based on their current unemployment, but ultimately it was the bosses decision to make. While I felt it unfair I moved on as working for such a company, in my opinion, isn’t worth it as such an attitude often reflects a lack of commitment and respect by the employer towards their employees.

Unfortunately, I’ve heard similar stories from assorted friends, family, and associates over the years, particularly when the recession really hit hard between 2008-2010. I’ve even seen posts at job board over the last couple years while I was hunting for contract and freelance work with the ridiculous requirement that one must be employed in order to be hired. In other words, it’s slowly becoming a serious problem and a means used by some unscrupulous employers to justify their personal biases. (I still get amusement over an HR person for a foreign company wanting to hire American engineers and designers insisting I was lying about being a U.S. citizen because I had a “strange accent”. I assume they meant my native Arizonan accent, which is rare and really not that noticeably different.)

Yes, employers want their employees to be up to date on their skills, but an employed person is not necessarily one who has kept current for their field. (I’ve certainly met enough to confirm that over the years.) This desire for skilled labor does not justify discrimination in any form, especially against those who need the work the most: the unemployed.

I guess it’s a good thing I simply don’t get the need of others to discriminate. If someone’s qualified and can do the job, who cares about their appearance, gender, beliefs, or any of the rest. If they can do the job and work with their fellow employees to accomplish tasks, that is what should matter.

At least, that was what lawyers from the UK argued during a debate at Philadelphia’s Ben Franklin Hall.

And a cow goes ‘moo’.

Of course the Brits would say the Declaration of Independence was illegal based on what they deemed lawful. The Americans of the time had an entirely different perspective of what was lawful. In the end the Revolutionaries’ viewpoint won out after a lengthy conflict with a combination of foreign assistance (France) and some miscalculations by the British troops/officers when dealing with the Colonies’ civilians and army.

Those in power always claim those who challenge their authority and succeed did so illegally. Even centuries after the fact. For example, both branches of my family could rightly claim that the British Empire illegally forced them to leave their homelands (Scotland and Ireland). What does that accomplish? Nothing. It doesn’t change the fact that my family is here and the old homelands are now viewed as a place to visit to reconnect with our heritage, nothing more.